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The Department of Justice indicted New York Attorney General Letitia James on Thursday in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia on one count of bank fraud and one count of making false statements to a financial institution. (Indictment.) James brought a civil bank fraud suit against the Trump family business in 2022 on behalf of New York. She called the charges against her “baseless” and “nothing more than a continuation of the president’s desperate weaponization of our justice system.” (WSJ.)
Judge Sara L. Ellis (N.D. Ill.) issued a temporary restraining order on Thursday prohibiting federal law enforcement in the Chicago area from using certain tactics—including arrests, orders of dispersal, and use of riot control weapons without legal justification—against journalists and protestors. Plaintiffs had alleged that federal authorities targeted journalists and protestors with excessive force in violation of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act and their First and Fourth Amendment rights. (Temporary Restraining Order.) (Statement.)
Judge April M. Perry (N.D. Ill.) issued a temporary restraining order Thursday blocking the Trump administration from deploying the National Guard to Illinois. (Temporary Restraining Order.) (WSJ.)
Tennessee National Guard troops will begin patrolling Memphis on Friday. (NYT.)
Chad Squitieri proposed an originalist and textualist argument supporting Trump’s implementation of tariffs under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, drawing on the founders’ understanding of the difference between a “tax” and a “tariff.” (WaPo.)
Richard Re argued that the president’s removal power “may simply be indeterminate as a matter of original history.” (Divided Argument.)
Michael Mattler argued that Trump’s executive order committing the United States to defend Qatar’s security without Congressional approval raises significant constitutional and policy questions. (Just Security.)
Pending Interim Order Applications Involving the U.S. Government in the Supreme Court
Trump v. Orr: The government filed an emergency application on September 19 requesting the Supreme Court to stay an injunction issued by a district court that requires the State Department to allow transgender and nonbinary people to choose the sex designation on their passports. Justice Jackson formally set a deadline of October 4 for a response to the application. Orr submitted a response on October 6, and President Trump filed a reply on October 7.